Linux Turns 20 Years Old

Today is a very special day for Linux. Precisely 20 years ago on this very day Linus Torvalds sat down at his computer to share word of his ‘hobby’ operating system to users of Minix – a UNIX Operating System – on the UseNet newsgroup ‘comp.os.minix‘.

That announcement would go down in history.

Hello everybody out there using minix –

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

–Linus Torvalds

Small project, massive impact

Little did Linus realize at the time, but his small ‘hobby’ would change the world of computing forever.

It’s funny to think that in 1991 Linux was developed with the intention of supporting just one type of computer. Fast forward to 2011 Linux can be found in almost everything – from personal computers and ATMs to, games consoles, watches, clocks, microwaves, cars and even the New York Stock Exchange.

The Linux Foundation has produced the following infographic to mark the milestone, showing precisely how far and wide Linux has spread in those intervening years…